The new Netflix thriller It’s What’s Inside had potential to be a good movie but the way it was filmed deprived it from being good. The movie scored a 57% according to Metacritic. The movie received a lot of mixed reviews, with some saying the movie was amazing and others saying it was a train wreck. These critics aren’t teens though, and watching through the eyes of a teenager, the film is simply too boring to be either incredible or awful.
The movie is about a group of college friends who get together before one of them gets married. An unexpected arrival is Forbes (David W. Thompson), a former friend who brings a mysterious suitcase. He asks the rest of the group if they want to play a game, then attaches equipment to each person. He then switches everyone’s body to create a guessing game of who is now whom.
Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and her boyfriend Cyrus (James Morosini) haven’t been getting along, so when Shelby switches into the body of Nikki, a famous Instagram model played by Alycia Debnam-Carey, she takes the opportunity to tempt Cyrus romantically. Chaos then erupts when a couple of the friends die while in someone else’s body, and the group has to wait to switch back until the machine recharges after 24 hours.
The movie is similar to the 2020 hit horror comedy Freaky, where Katherine Newton’s teen loser swapped bodies with Vince Vaughn’s maniacal serial killer. But while that film worked because it built up its characters before the swap and kept the plot simple, It’s What’s Inside becomes confusing fast. After the second body swap, it’s hard to keep track of who is in what body because each character is given little to no backstory, so they all blend together (especially when all of the characters are in different bodies). The plot had potential, but none of the body swaps seemed interesting because none of the characters in their own bodies were set up as interesting.
This movie is also tonally boring. The genre is supposedly horror, but there are no scares or creepy locations. It’s not even a psychological thriller, because despite there being a twist at the end, no one has any motive for anything they do. Other than Forbes, none of the performances are even that notable or above average. The ending then pulls a deus ex machina and introduces a brand-new character just to try to make the audience think the film had a clever throughline all along.
Overall, the movie had the potential to be interesting, but it went down the drain quickly because of how confusing it was. It’s What’s Inside is one of those movies that needs very close attention to make sense but never gives the viewer a reason to pay close attention. The stakes feel light (even after characters die) and the consequences of the film don’t feel impactful or even logical. It’s What’s Inside may be a good movie for someone who likes mind games and thrillers, but the average teen will get more enjoyment out of twenty minutes inside TikTok than even twenty minutes watching this movie.
